The Identity of Colin
by Elle Mira
Summary: "Their attempts went on and on, but he knew he was stuck there, in that space between life and death." Reviews are appreciated.


[A/N: It's always kind of puzzled me as to why Colin gave Dr. Brown the letter in the season finale, saying to let him die instead of remaining in a coma. He said he didn't want to go through rehab, go through all of it again, and blah blah blah blah. I never understood why he wasn't willing to just tough it out again. Why he wouldn't give up a year or two to have the rest of his life. Here's a stab at the answer.]

The people of Everwood have a definition of the way life should be. Each person has a family and a childhood and a bright future, and then grow up, work, get married, have kids, and die. 

The people of Everwood like to keep things simple. But sometimes, they merely cannot be. 

***  


Normally, life is like a boat ride. It glides along smoothly at some points and is hazardous at others. It can be enjoyable sometimes, but it can also be frightening. Eventually the ride is over and the boat docks. For Colin Hart, waves were constantly cascading upon the boat in which he sailed.

Part of him wanted to dock or sink, and the other part wanted to brave through the storm until he found good weather again.

Now he was lost, stranded on an uncharted desert island where he knew neither the customs of the inhabitants, nor his own past.

He decided that there were two worlds: the world of the living and the world of the dead. One day an invisible hand had plucked him up by the shirt collar and tossed him into the abyss in between. His mother, father, sister, girlfriend, and friends all called out his name, but he couldn't move his mouth to reply. When they finally found him, they tried to pull him from the darkness but failed. Their attempts went on and on, but he knew he was stuck there, in that space between life and death. When he was pulled toward life, death tugged him forward a little, and when he was ready to give up and surrender to decease, someone told him to hold on and out of pity he obeyed.

He was different, misunderstood. Someone he had never met. He was an imperfect soul living in a perfect body with the perfect life. Thousands of times he wondered, why had he been placed in Colin the First's body? Why did he have to be the imperfection, the stain on purity, the disappointment? Why? Why couldn't the gods of chaos have dropped him into the life of someone who had no expectations to live up to, someone who was not loved and was not remembered?

You are Colin Hart, he was told. You are perfect, wonderful, beautiful Colin.

Rage built up inside of him. He was not this Colin. Everyone looked only at the shadow of the Colin they once knew. No one saw his suffering, perhaps because it was too mangled and twisted to fit into their views on the way things should be.

Slowly, things appeared in his mind that he had not experienced, but actually had, once, because they were memories. The pieces then fit together, and he had a past, but little future at all. When he was told again and again that he was Colin Hart, he began to believe it.

He was Colin, now. Colin with a name and a past. Colin with a family and a girlfriend and friends.

Every time he was afraid, he told himself that he had something untouchable. He had an identity.

He was starting to fit Everwood's definition; he was making the cut. He had his picture-perfect life. Until he started to drift toward death again. Seizures, technicalities, blood, and chips in his brain, they were all in _his _definition, his dictionary of life.

And then there was surgery. The leap. The risky voyage on the boat that no one in the pure, innocent town had ever taken at such a young age. Colin finally decided that the uncertainty was better than standing still on that uncharted desert island. He had to take action.

He could no longer stand to be in between the two worlds; he had to finally choose a place to reside. Death or life, whichever it was, he had to be whole again. He could no longer stand being broken. This is what he told Andrew Brown. He wasn't afraid of death because it had come so close to him, had breathed down his neck for almost a year. Everyone called him brave, but he knew he wasn't. He was just settling the score, taking a path, no longer staring at a fork in the road and trying to make a decision.

***

The people of Everwood have a definition of the way life should be. Colin Hart nearly fit that description. He nearly had a perfect life. Although he was tortured and unsure of where to go, he still had that to fall back on. 

The people of Everwood like to keep things simple. Colin's death was simple. It was the only thing he understood since waking up from the coma. He finally had a place to stay.

No matter where he was, in a hospital bed, at his funeral, or underground with a tombstone above him, he was invincible because he had an identity. He was a person, named Colin Hart.

--Fin--

[A/N: Depressing, I know. And I hope it won't turn out to be true. Colin, don't die, I love you!

Sorry it was just a bunch of broken ideas; I know it didn't really flow. But it's been a while. I'm glad to be back home from my various church gatherings so I can write the rest of the summer away. Expect more one-shots up soon.

--Elle]


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